Credit Mutuel Arkea Hack: $133M Traced to Crypto, Bank Confirms
The Credit Mutuel Arkea hack is real, but the size of the loss is not confirmed. The French bank admitted a cyberattack on November 4. Onchain sleuth ZachXBT puts the theft above $133 million, per CoinDesk and Bitcoin Magazine. The bank would only “validate the order of magnitude.”
What the bank says about the Credit Mutuel Arkea hack
Arkea told CoinDesk the attack “had enabled fraudulent transactions but was now under control.” It says customer assets were not touched. According to the bank, attackers got in through a service provider’s platform, then used the bank’s own account to send payments to other banks. From there the money could be turned into crypto on specialised platforms. It denies the French press report that the entry point was its online arm, Fortuneo.
Moreover, the bank gave no start date, no attacker and no final loss. AFP reported a provisional estimate near 100 million euros. Reuters said the bank put losses below $133 million. A spokesperson said it is “still too early to give a final figure.”
What ZachXBT and the exchanges say
First, on Monday ZachXBT flagged more than $106 million leaving centralized exchange accounts on November 1, as USDC and USDT. Then he added $27 million or more. Finally, on Wednesday he named Arkea as the suspected victim. He also said he has “high confidence” Lazarus Group was not behind it, based on how the funds moved.
Bitquery traced $108.8 million in USDC out of Kraken, Crypto.com and OKX over 21 hours. Much of it then became ether and moved through hundreds of wallets. Crypto.com says it blocked funds linked to the incident. OKX says it froze an institutional account. Kraken did not respond to CoinDesk. Still, the bank says part of the money is frozen, but gave no amount.
Why the Credit Mutuel Arkea hack is a banking hack first
This was not a bitcoin protocol failure, and no coin was broken. Fiat left a bank, and crypto exchanges were the exit door. Because the loot was mostly dollar stablecoins turned into ether, we see no reason for a sustained bitcoin sell-off. Bitcoin trades near $80,518 as we write. See our Bitcoin price prediction page for the daily view.
Miner math: what the Arkea hack means for your margin
Here is the live maths on November 5. Bitcoin is $80,518 and the network is 1028 EH/s, so hashprice is about $35.45 per petahash per day. That is what one PH/s of hashing earns before power.
| Machine | 5c/kWh | 8c/kWh | 12c/kWh | Break-even |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antminer S19 (95 TH/s, 3250 W) | -$0.53 | -$2.87 | -$5.99 | 4.3c |
| Antminer S19k Pro (115 TH/s, 2645 W) | $0.90 | -$1.00 | -$3.54 | 6.4c |
| Antminer S19 XP (141 TH/s, 3010 W) | $1.39 | -$0.78 | -$3.67 | 6.9c |
| Antminer S21 Pro (234 TH/s, 3510 W) | $4.08 | $1.56 | -$1.81 | 9.8c |
Numbers are profit per day after electricity, at the three power prices shown. Break-even is the most you can pay per kilowatt-hour before the machine loses money. Specs are the manufacturer ratings; network data comes from mempool.space. Try your own power price in our free bitcoin mining profit calculator. See what these machines really sold for in our used ASIC miner price index. Want to run the same numbers on a machine you can buy today? See our used ASIC miners, or buy several at once through bulk lots.
If hack headlines knock 2% off bitcoin: the break-even power price on an S19k Pro falls from 6.4 to 6.3 cents per kilowatt-hour. At 8 cents, daily profit goes from -$1.00 to -$1.08.
If the story fades and bitcoin gains 2%: the break-even power price on an S19k Pro rises from 6.4 to 6.6 cents per kilowatt-hour. At 8 cents, daily profit goes from -$1.00 to -$0.92.
The blunt answer for miners
The Credit Mutuel Arkea hack does not touch your block reward or your power bill. The only miner angle is indirect: more pressure on exchanges for tighter checks and slower withdrawals. Hashrate sits near 1028 EH/s per mempool.space. At 8 cents most S19-class machines lose money today, and a 2% move barely changes that. Weigh your options on our we buy used miners page or the mining economics guides. Keep your coins in your own wallet, not on an exchange.
-Nick
ING Mining
This is general information, not financial advice. Crypto is volatile, and exchanges can fail. Please do your own research.
How this story was made: drafted with the help of AI tools from public sources, then edited by Nick Squires. See our editorial policy. Spot an error? Email ns@ingmining.com.